


And What Comes After

by thewolvesintherain



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 11:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13363485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewolvesintherain/pseuds/thewolvesintherain
Summary: After the Kingsman Boys depart, Champ has to figure out what to do about Tequila.





	And What Comes After

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Kingsman Flash Bang, with art from the lovely Kay, here at kgrl7.tumblr.com

Kingsman big bang fic

 

Once the Kingsman boys depart, Champ has to decide what to do about Tequila.

 

Ginger’s (He’s never going to be able to call her whiskey. Can’t know her that way after so long) has kept herself in charge of his medical care. She won’t let anyone else touch the boy even though they have a new Ginger who’s more than prepared and ready to take over. She’d parked the boy in medical once it became clear that he wasn’t shaking off the effects of Poppy’s poison as easy as it appears. Gingers not sure why the effects are so bad for him this time, but she thinks some of it might be his body just saying enough is enough.

 

It wouldn’t surprise him. Tequilas body is a very crotchety instrument, these days. He’d been beaten up pretty badly busting Broncos and riding bulls in the rodeo before he’d joined the Corps and Iraq sure as hell hadn’t helped. Then he’d come to statesmen, been their number one agent until V-day had happened.

He’d spent six months recovering from that, and even after six months, he wasn’t nearly back to the condition he had been in.

 

Champ knows that Tequila's been through the ringer in the last couple of years. He knows the boy’s in pain more often than not. They’d tried pretty much every remedy under the sun, when they finally got the boy to admit what was wrong.

 

And Champ won’t ever forget that quiet, trembling little, "It hurts" that Tequila had finally given him. Never ever ever.

And that was the hell of it. There was no reason for most of it - it just hurts. All the time. 

 

Most of the homeopathic remedies had been pretty effective, so Tequila gets massages and swims and exercises a lot and bakes pot brownies.

 

(Which they keep clearly labeled after that time Champ has the worst munchies on the planet.) But Champ doesn’t mind. Not when all of this allows Tequila to get back on with his life in a somewhat normal manner. Of course, he wants the boy to be as comfortable as possible, pain-free ideally. That's why he'd never had an issue with the THC oil, knew that it managed Tequila's pain better than the hard drugs he was on before, as well as having less chance of addiction.

But he'd never expected this to happen, and it makes him sick to watch the boy struggle through what might as well be another withdrawal process, all while grieving hard for Whiskey. He wants to be able to do more than he is currently but it's not something Tequila will allow him, too familiar for his most standoffish agent.

 

After what had happened to him on V-day the top shelf had wanted the boy to take early retirement, Champ had wanted that too. But Tequila wasn’t done yet and Champ didn't have the heart to make him retire before he was finished. So he hasn't. But watching the boy struggle like he is right now he's beginning to think about changing his mind. He's thinking about setting Tequila up with some fancy office job where he can charm all sorts of important people and get Champ knowledge and never see the wrong end of a gun again.

Ginger is working on getting their own little THC system set up, so they can guarantee it's purity, so this little cluster won't ever happen again. It's a good step and he knows Quila appreciates it, but frankly, it feels like too little too late. He's spitting mad that none of them thought about it being a weakness before.

 

Tequila is asleep right now, which is the only reason Champ's getting away with holding his hand as he flips through his rather large backlog of emails. This last incident's been a hell of a story and he's still getting requests from the state department to explain to them exactly what has happened in Brazil. He can't blame them for being confused. He's still a little iffy on some details himself and both Galahads have run it through for him at least twice.

Tequila'd had to be told and he’d taken it hard, which Champ understands. He doesn’t know quite went wrong there with Whiskey only understands that all too often the things you run so hard from catch up in the end.

 

When Tequila wakes up, closer to the dinner hour, Champ is careful to not look too interested in his reports as he asks, “You hungry?”

He doesn’t get much of a response, but he orders chicken soup for the boy anyway, pretending he doesn’t notice - or at least that it doesn’t make him so angry - when the boy’s hands shake as he holds the spoon.

 

Tequila wakes up in the middle of the night. He’s not sure why at first. Nothing hurts - at least not any more than it usually does. His eyes feel a lot better, less scratchy from crying - he’s sure the sleep helped, the IV possibly too. 

 

He’s not sure what wakes him, other than the low murmuring coming from the little living room outside of his suite.

 

It’s Champ, he realizes, after a moment of lying still and breathing slow, focusing with his ears on the other room. He’s talking to someone - on the phone? Tequila can’t hear the other side of the conversation at all. The older man is saying something, low and gruff, in that tone that usually lets Tequila know he needs to take two giant steps back with whatever he’s doing.

 

“I’m not retiring one of the best agents I have - just because you might not like all of his methods. And I’m definitely not doing it just because you don’t like the fact that what we do has consequences, and my agents need support after the fact.”

 

They must go on for a while after that, because Champ just snarls, and then there's the sound of his phone (Champ's a Luddite, he still uses a flip phone, which makes Tequila die a little inside every time.) snapping shut, and then Ginger's voice, telling him, "He's not well enough - "

"He can damn well have the time to get better then!"

There's a sick sort of silence that even has Tequila squirming, and then Champ says, "Damn it. I'm sorry Ging. I'm just - boy's gonna give me a stroke before my time."

 

Champ tells him that a lot, so Tequila's stopped believing him. He doesn't think anything'll get Champ before his liver will.

 

He can hear the heels on Champ's boots as the man comes back into the room, but instead of sitting down heavily in the space beside the bed like Tequila thinks he will, he stands there for a long minute, before he puts one hand on Tequila's head, thumb at his temple, and murmurs, "Gonna be the death of me boy."

He stands there a long time, longer than it takes for Tequila to subside back into a heavy, exhausted sleep.

 

 

When it had first happened- when he had woken up in the infirmary the first time - he'd been on so many drugs that he'd been in absolutely no pain - that'd been very important to everyone, in those days. He'd realized later that they'd seen most of it, that the guys who'd nabbed him had had some sort of live stream, that they'd used the chaos of V-day to nab him up.

 

What they'd done to him...

Well, Tequila doesn't like to think about it. He'd been bed bound for months, too tired and weak to even try defying Ginger's orders and getting out of bed. His memories of that time are very fuzzy, but he remembers Champ being there, the old man's voice gentle, and his hands soft while he wiped Tequila's face for him, or held the glass for him while he sucked on ice chips. He remembers Champ being there an extraordinary amount of the time, is the thing. He remembers waking up from nightmares and seeing Champ sitting in the chair beside his bed, telling him, “ Go back to sleep boy. You’re fine here. “

 

Little by little, Tequila had started to believe him. Feeling safe again had done wonders for his state of mind and his recovery had proceeded apace after that, and he'd gotten better - slowly but surely, though he'd never quite managed to move back out of the suite in the dormitories they'd given him when he'd still been recovering.

Champ had just put all of this things in storage when he'd first been declared MIA, and it'd been the matter of an afternoon or so to get all his things from the storage unit and move into his little suite right up above the distilleries. The whole thing smells like oaks, and whiskey, sharp and sweet, and sleepy. 

They were only supposed to be temporary apartments - weren't really meant for long-term living at all. Tequila had come back from a milk run to Florida, to find that Champ had gotten someone in, combined the next room over with his and made it into a little apartment, just for him. 

He loves that place. 

Once he finally gets out of the infirmary - by pitching the biggest fit he'd ever managed to pull off without getting a raised eyebrow or a look from Champ - he goes to his own apartment, his own bed, and he curls up under bedding that still smells familiar and warm. 

He sleeps ten hours through, wakes up to his phone vibrating on the floor - it must have been going so long it rattled off the edge of the bed. 

He sits up, blinking in the mid-afternoon light filtering in through his blinds, and reaches over the side of the bed, thumbing the accept button before he even looks at who it is, raising it to the side of his face and muttering, "'Quila"

"Boy" - it's Champ, and he doesn't sound quite as annoyed as he should be, considering Tequila's probably slept through three or four calls by now. 

"I'd get down here if I was you. Top Shelf showed up, twenty, thirty, minutes ago. They've been debating in the boardroom ever since."

 

\----

 

"No."

"Agent Champagne, please be reasonable -- "

"No." 

"Agent Tequila has shown that he's - "

"That he's what?!?" Champ's face is transformed from the soft gentility he normally wears at all times and Tequila leans back a little bit in his seat, even though he's not in the line of fire here. One of the "Risk assessors" from Top Shelf is. 

 

The lady - who really doesn’t know when to quit - is snarling right back at Champ, they make 'em tough in risk assessment these days apparently, and Tequila has to respect the pure bloody cussedness it takes to go up against Champ when he's in a lather. 

"Agent Tequila has shown that no matter his other skills, he has no sense of self-preservation and can't be trusted to ensure that his own well being - even less so that of this agency!"

Champ snaps right back at her, tells her, "You're out of line, Ms. Branson."  
"Your agency is out of line - allowing a risk factor of this magnitude to continue to operate in his agency - even as it's clear that he cannot operate in day to day life without the aid of - "  
"Enough!"  
Champ's voice is a roar as he slaps his hand flat down on the table, and Tequila jerks back from the sudden sharp noise. 

There's a silence - then Champ tells him, "Go see Whiskey boy." 

Tequila has no problem obeying. The other agent takes on look at him and gets him sitting down at her desk, sipping hot tea with lemon, and a generous slug of her namesake added as well. She doesn't say anything as he sips, willing his hands to stop trembling so much - and whispers - "Champ should've retired me when I got back - when I got back the first time, huh?"  
Ginger doesn't say anything for a long minute, and then - finally tells him, softly, "You were in so much pain Tequila - mentally, physically. Champ was afraid that if he pushed you away, he would lose you, and he couldn't bear that."

Tequila nods, tells her, "So the twelve months of fluff missions?"  
Ginger's face screws up in distress, and he eventually tells him, "I'm sorry sugar. He thought that if he let you keep going out into the field, eventually you'd realize that you were a little out of your depth now - that you'd want to move into something else yourself."

He doesn't answer, just nods, finishes his tea in one long gulp, and leaves the room. 

When he'd first arrived at Kingsman - fresh out of the corps and stressed out by the fact that agents and superiors mingled so freely - he'd spent a lot of time sitting on top of the distillery roof. The ladder up to roof still works, and it's the work of a minute to find something to prop the hatch up with. The heat from the building below keeps it a little warmer than the surrounding area, but he's still wrapped up in his jacket, working his way through a pack of Lucky Strikes. 

Champ finds him up there a few hours later, carrying a takeaway bag and telling him, "You better not have gone through all those smokes, boy."  
He can't help but produce a watery smile, as well as an extra cigarette for Champ. He gets a burger for his troubles, one of the local places that are a little healthier than Mickey D's and a big icy Dr. Pepper from the DQ down the street. 

Champ doesn't say anything while he makes his way through the burger, instead smokes his Lucky diligently. Once he's stubbed it out, and Tequila's down to the dregs of his soda, Champ tells him, "Ginger told me what you said."

He nods, waits another minute or so, and Champ tells him, "You know I'd do anything to keep you happy, boy."

He does know that, is the thing. Knows it through the years he's known the man, and the things Champ has done for him.  
"Even keep me on to do the grocery shopping?"

Champ smiles, softly, tells him, "If you want me to? Absolutely."

Tequila believes him, he really does.  
There's only so long a man can lie to himself though, and Tequila's not stupid. For Champ to keep him on - with Top Shelf and everyone else against it, would mean Champ'd have to expend a lot of leverage. Leverage that he could be using for something else. 

So he shakes his head, as much as it pains him to. Tells Champ, "There are other things - better things - for you to be worryin' on. I'll be just fine."

Champ shakes his head, asks him, "Do you really think I'm going to leave you hanging like that boy?"

\-----

2 weeks later

 

"Hey, Bruv!"  
Eggsy's walking out just behind Tequila as he goes out to lunch. The younger man's gone out of his way to take Tequila under his wing - making sure to invite him for meals and drinks, as well as helping him find his way around his new city. 

He offers Eggsy a bashful smile, grateful that the younger man's been so gracious about building a friendship with him - especially since they'd met with Eggsy on the wrong side of a shotgun.

The younger man hurries to catch up with him, asks, "You want lunch, man? Or you doing your chat today?"  
He can't help smiling. His weekly video call with Champ, or his "chat" as Eggsy and Harry called it. It was enough of a routine that his more reserved colleagues had already gone out of their way to accommodate.

He smiles, nods at the phone in his hand, Champ's icon already displayed, and Eggsy laughs, tells him, "I'll see you this afternoon them. Enjoy it, man."  
Tequila probably will enjoy it - more than he'd like to admit, as he presses a finger onto the "call" button, and waits for it to ring through. 

 

\------------

"I went and got fish and chips for lunch. The driver here knows the best places. When you come over here for Christmas we'll have to go get some."  
Tequila looks happy and hale on the other end of the video chat, and Champ waves his pancaked fork at him in a "Go on." gesture. The younger man's been catching him up on all the goings-on in his life, from the fish and chips down the way to the pub Eggsy had taken him drinking at the other night, to the museum he'd visited last weekend. 

The administrative job - liaising with Kingsman and British Intelligence had originally been Whiskey's idea - get the boy away from the rest of the top shelf and such, and let him get his beak wet on a job that he might be better suited to. Tequila's been working his southern charm on all sorts of suits in the last few weeks, holding some meetings and helping Kingsman get up to snuff, and getting plenty of rest and quiet besides. The job was much less stressful, and it showed, some of the strain sliding off of the boy's face.

It does his heart good to see the boy well - quite a bit of good, really. And as far as being afraid the boy would forget them all when he moved - that hadn't happened - the exact opposite actually. Tequila'd been skyping and texting enough that Champ had broken down and bought himself a new smartphone, to Whiskey's genuine delight. he was treated to so many little tidbits of the boy's day - all of which he loved, as well as video calls once a week that he didn't even mind getting up early for.

Tequila's soft drawl comes to an end, as he asks Champ, "Are you even listenin' to me?"  
Champ laughs, tells him, "My mind's allowed to wander now and again boy. You almost back to the office?"  
"Yeah. I'll text you tonight?"  
"Sounds good boy. Be safe, huh?"  
He gets the usual nose wrinkle he always does when he brings up Tequila's safety, but he can't bring himself to mind, instead repeating the order until he gets a nod, and a "Yessir." from his boy. Tequila grumbles under his breath, but he's smiling when he disconnects the call, and Champ can't bring himself to mind. 

Maybe he and the boy will make it into Champ's seventies after all.


End file.
